Even after their confidence-sapping last-ball loss to Chennai at the Ferozeshah Kotla last Thursday, Sehwag had retained his sense of humour. “The last over,” he chuckled, when asked what the turning point of the match was.

Sehwag’s never been known to get bogged down by a couple of blips, but if they fail to beat the Deccan Chargers tomorrow, you can expect that smile to be wiped off his face. The Daredevils have now lost four games on the trot, and are definitely slipping in their quest for what at one point seemed like a sure-shot spot in the last four.

Perfect spoilers

Sticking by logic, Hyderabad should not pose much of a problem. They’re languishing at an embarrassing seventh place with just two wins in nine games, and at present, they’re locked in a slightly degrading battle for bottom spot with the Bangalore Royal Challengers.

Bangalore’s woes have been in the spotlight, thanks in no small measure to owner Vijay Mallya — who first sacked CEO Charu Sharma and followed up by slagging captain Rahul Dravid off in the press. Hyderabad, on the other hand, after hogging the limelight in the auction, have been low-profile in their failures.

Unlike Bangalore, their problem hasn’t been the lack of ammunition. They made all the right buys: firepower in the form of Adam Gilchrist, Andrew Symonds and Shahid Afridi; parsimony in the form of Chaminda Vaas and RP Singh — at least this wasn’t a ‘Test’ team.

Nine matches into the tournament, it hasn’t turned out to be too much of a T20 side either, but now that they’re almost out of contention for a semi-final spot, the would-be kings of the IPL are ready to ease themselves into the role of spoilers —ready to ruin the chances of several other teams by pulling off a couple of surprises.

They have what it takes to win, and they have nothing to lose. In most cases, that’s a rather potent combination.

Going solo

It’s difficult to zero in on Hyderabad’s blues. In a format that is reduced to an exhibition of the broadest bats in cricket, two of the top three run-getters in the tournament — Adam Gilchrist with 308 and Rohit Sharma with 296 — belong to the Deccan Chargers. Between them, they have five half centuries and a century.

Unfortunately, neither has fired in tandem. And off those six innings, only one — Gilchrist’s 109 chasing 154 against Mumbai — turned out to be match-winning.

Even skipper VVS Laxman was finding some sort of form before being ruled out through injury.

A prime example of them not clicking as a team was the match against the Rajasthan Royals, their third in the competition. When Andrew Symonds scores 117 off 53 balls, his side generally wins. But the bowling fell apart, and Shane Warne’s boys chased down 214. Two crucial points, and a big chunk of confidence, had been dropped.

Left goes wrong

On paper, the Hyderabad bowling attack looked tailor-made for T20. Through his career, Chaminda Vaas has nagged batsmen to their graves. Partnering him was RP Singh, one of India’s heroes at the World T20 and definitely the most-improved bowler in the country over the last season.

Vaas has been surprisingly ineffective, picking up four wickets in four games and going at more than eight an over. RP Singh has picked up a reasonable 12 wickets, but even he’s going at nearly eight-and-a-half. As the weeks have gone by though, he’s looked more and more likely to provide one match-winning spell. Hyderabad will be hoping it’s not too far away.

All-round failure

The biggest problem for them, though, has been the inability of their two top all-rounders — Scott Styris and Shahid Afridi — to come to the party. Styris has got 62 runs in five innings (including a top-score of 36 not out), while Afridi — on whom so much was riding after the departure of Symonds — has scored a ridiculous 47 in six. Add to that the failure of Herschelle Gibbs — a man who played a big part in chasing down 434 in a one-dayer not so long ago — and you get a fair idea of why this team of superstars is languishing in seventh spot.

But with the weight of expectations off their shoulders, they might still light up the next couple of weeks. Sehwag can only hope they don’t start tomorrow.